In January — three days before President Trump was inaugurated — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shared a proposal via the Federal Register to launch an auto-loan survey to collect a variety of information from contract holders.

Last week, the American Financial Services Association responded to the proposal’s request for comment. AFSA said the bureau should table the project, adding that “the CFPB is not exactly starved for data.”

According to this document in the Federal Register, the CFPB said at the time that the survey would use the CFPB’s Consumer Credit Information Panel (CCIP) as the sampling frame.

The bureau said this survey would solicit information on the consumer’s experience related to auto purchases and loans including:

—Choosing a vehicle and financing

—Experiences with major vehicle expenses

—Experiences with loan servicing

—If applicable, loan modification and repossession

The bureau went on to mention this survey would augment the auto finance data pilot and CCIP data by providing information not available in either source such as:

—Consumer demographics

—Household income and assets

—Income or expense shocks

—Understanding of the auto financing market and expectations

—Self-reported experiences with auto-loan origination and servicing

After combing through that proposal, AFSA president-elect Celia Winslow penned a letter to acting CFPB director Russell Vought. Winslow began by explaining to the bureau that as described, the survey seeks subjective information from consumers, which she said is an inappropriate basis for the bureau’s decision making.

“Consumers with extreme experiences tend to respond to surveys at a higher rate than the average consumer experience, thereby skewing the results,” Winslow wrote. “This can lead to policies and decisions not based on the actual market, but a biased view of the market.

“The information collection request announcing the survey also fails to provide the questions to be asked, which makes it impossible to assess whether the survey is appropriate,” she continued. “Judging from the general statement about the survey, it seems that the bureau is interested in things that are beyond its authority, such as consumers’ experiences in purchasing vehicles, how consumers choose vehicles and how consumers manage their household finances for vehicle related expenses outside of vehicle financing.

“The bureau’s search for subjective data suggests the bureau seeks to make decisions based on consumer sentiment rather than objective factors,” she added.

Winslow then pointed out a path that could lead the CFPB to what she considered to be useful details.

“The best information about consumers’ experiences with vehicle finance transactions is the quantitative data that the bureau collects when it operates its supervision activities,” she wrote. “That data provides objective insight into the transactions consumers enter, how the transactions are serviced, and how those transactions perform over time.”

Winslow stressed that the bureau would help AFSA and the public by explaining clearly why this objective data already in the bureau’s possession is inadequate to serve the bureau’s legitimate needs.

“Congress did not establish the CFPB to supervise all vehicle finance transactions,” Winslow wrote. “Congress provided a mechanism for the bureau to supervise larger participants in various segments of consumer finance. Using this authority, the bureau wrote a rule defining the scope of its supervision to a segment of larger participants for the automobile financing market.

“If Congress had wanted the bureau to know even more about the vehicle finance market, it could have provided the authority to supervise all of it,” she continued. “But Congress imposed limits on the bureau to focus its attention on the largest companies in the market and to leave the rest to state supervision.”

Winslow closed with one more contention about the bureau’s proposal, calling it “a fishing expedition.”

She added, “the bureau has not explained why its current sources of data are inadequate to perform its Congressionally mandated functions. The bureau has also not explained why gathering subjective opinions from consumers is a suitable source of information to guide the bureau in its work.

“With these observations in mind, AFSA respectfully urges the bureau to table the survey proposal until it can justify the need for this sort of data,” Winslow concluded.